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Listening BoothYOUR MUSIC ONLY. Don't post music from your label or DJ night. No podcasts or radio shows, just individual tracks. Give some feedback, get some in return.
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[Genre] Artist - Title

So its spring break and I've got a couple all day studio days lined up. This is the result of one days work. I dunno 7-8 hours maybe. I've used the pink noise leveling method on this mix twice, as an experiment never done it before. Also a tad of master bus processing. The result is rather nicely (?) 90's sounding to me. I'd randomly come across a few "dark disco" tracks recently and decided to give my interpretation of that a go. Any feedback welcome.

EDIT: Feck. Rim shot too loud, yes?

EDIT EDIT: Also, relatively no EQ. Trying to get the mix as good as I can w/o it these days. Again, just an experiment. No logic behind it really.

EDITEDITEDIT: Been listening to a lot of Meat Beat Manifesto. Not that this sounds like them so much except the texture/mix?

so int he begging the ride is either too prominent or maybe it just needs something added to it, some harmonics or a different envelope. The vocals at the end are quite loud. The overall idea is cool, it has a nice groove to it. I can see the 90s thing you are going for, but the processing seems a bit too digitally distored on the vocals, they seem a bit harsh.

Great work for a single day, I usually need a week to get something listenable out of my brain and into my PC.

I appriciate the thoughts. And yea, all kinds of issues going on. I've certainly gone overboard on some of the processing here I think.

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While I usually prefer to keep stuff to myself/work on it for a while before I put it out sometimes its liberating to just crank something out and show it to the world. Its a good exercise. Would be happy to have a listen to anything. Shoot me a PM sometime.

I really like this..and just as it is. I know it's got a few issues in there going on, as you guys have touched on already..but I feel it works all the more for them, mainly because it takes me back to one hot summer in the late 80s over in England, when I was into a local crossover Ska band in a big way and they had this kind of sound live..real festival stuff.

Anyway, thanks for this..appreciate the trip back in time, A..nice one.

Totally agree with AM. I like it as it stands, rough edges and all. Has a live 80s dub sound system feel to it. You might tackle some of the really outstanding EQ/mix issues but I wouldn't take a heavy hand to anything.

I second (third?) the rough / jaggedness of this track. I think you nailed the 90s sound, and those vocal samples complete the picture. Everything down to the heavy saturation on those hihats captures the flavor of analog equipment, despite what was actually used to make this.

To my untrained ears, it almost sounds like whatever was happening just before bigbeat became a thing. I'm probably just slightly too young to know what the fuck I'm talking about, but this seems like the lo-fi trip hop that could have been happening around then... or I don't know 90s music at all.

Anyway, what equipment was used? I'd love to know, and I'd love to hear more of this.

Edit: The snares / rims don't appear to be too loud at all. The transient impact is pretty enjoyable, IMO.

It's pretty crazy that you accomplished this with relatively no EQ. Great mixing job, for sure.

Artificer/A.M. Thanks guys. Those are all huge compliments. Though as Artificer says, I probably take a look at some of the more glaring issues. I haven't listened to this out of the studio yet myself.

Vault I was also to young to be there myself, but there was a lot of just "dance music" being made. When I think Big Beat I think Chem Bros, Crystal Method, Fatboy Slim. But either way I was going for a feeling of "OK. We have a drum machine, one synth and a sampler. Lets make some dance music". The equipment was a Korg MS 20 (reissue), Analog 4 and DrumBrute. I have to hand the mixing to that Pink Noise technique for the levels, then I did a little panning.

I've been having a pretty crazy creative spurt here recently I've started something like 20 tracks since the new year and have a basic arrangement for most of them. LP on the horizon if I can hunker down, finish and not second guess myself.

Can't speak too much about the mix because I'm not listening on monitors of any kind.

This track is fun though, and I'm a HUGE fan of that bass/bassline. I think that was the absolute highlight for me.

I don't understand mixing without EQ, unless you mean choosing elements that do not exist/peak in similar frequency ranges, because some subtractive eqing can really help different sonic elements live together symbiotically...

My only issues with it are the fact that your hats are narrow, and there's a bit much distortion. Cool concept though!

Thanks for the listen. I can get on board with the too much distortion. I was going for a bit of an early rave/90's vibe at least on the mixing so I'm not sure if I'd do any crazy modern widening, but some reverb etc for sure : )